Eric Bischoff
In 1991, Bischoff joined World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as an announcer, debuting at The Great American Bash. As an announcer, Bischoff reported to producer Tony Schiavone and WCW's Vice President of Broadcasting, Jim Ross. After WCW boss Bill Watts was fired by TBS executive Bill Shaw in 1993, Bischoff went to Shaw and WCW Vice President Bob Dhue to ask for the job of Executive Producer. At the time, Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone seemed to be the two top candidates. However, Bischoff was hired in Watts' place. Schiavone remained a producer until the company's demise, but Jim Ross was released from the company and ended up in the rival World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Initially, Bischoff and Bob Dhue worked together as partners, but frequently clashed over the direction of the company. In 1994, Bill Shaw promoted Bischoff from Executive Producer to Executive Vice President, effectively making him the boss of the entire company. Dhue resigned, as did event manager Don Sandefeur and junior-VP Jim Barnett (despite reports that they were all fired by him all on the same day, Bischoff denied this in a blog entry on his website, stating that Sandefeur and Dhue never reported to him). In 1996, Bill Shaw was reassigned from WCW, and by 1997, Bischoff's official job-title was President of WCW. Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. Almost immediately, he used the money allotted to him to sign big names such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and others away from the WWF. He also invested money in production values and increased the number of WCW pay-per-views (first 7 a year, then 10, and then once a month). The plans paid off, and in 1995, WCW turned a profit for the first time in the company's history. During one meeting at the CNN Center in 1995, WCW Owner (via Turner Broadcasting) Ted Turner asked Bischoff how the company could possibly compete with the WWF. Bischoff, taken aback by the question, told Turner to put WCW on prime time television against the WWF's Monday Night Raw on the USA Network. At the time, the flagship show for WCW was WCW Saturday Night, a taped show that ran on Saturday nights at 6:05 pm (EST), and was nowhere near the production value of Monday Night Raw. Bischoff argued that because of this, there was no direct competition between WCW and WWF for viewers. To the surprise of many within the wrestling industry (and those within Turner Broadcasting), and Bischoff himself, Turner agreed, and gave Bischoff a one hour prime time slot every Monday on TNT (in 1996, due to high ratings, it would expand to two hours, and eventually three hours in 1998). Bischoff designed and produced the new show, WCW Monday Nitro, and showcased the company as a fresh alternative to the WWF. Bischoff has stated that he wanted to draw an audience by being different from the competition and not trying to be similar. While new episodes of Raw were taped weeks in advance, Nitro was live each week, with Bischoff often giving away Raw results to encourage viewers to watch his show instead. In his book (Controversy Creates Ca$h), Bischoff describes the design for Nitro as being a complete alternative to the WWF. Raw catered to younger crowds, so Nitro went for the 18-35 male demographic. Character-wise, Raw featured larger than life cartoon characters, while Nitro would begin to integrate edgier characters with more depth. Raw tended to have lots of squash matches on its television each week at this time. Nitro regularly showcased competitive matches that would normally be reserved for pay-per-view. Because WCW and TNT were both part of Turner, Bischoff was able to start Nitro several minutes earlier than Raw, as well as provide a late-night rebroadcast so viewers who opted to watch Raw could still see the show. With the influx of new money Bischoff also began signing wrestlers from around the world, including All Japan , New Japan, and ECW to fill the undercard with quicker paced, more action-packed matches. Although most industry insiders had predicated short and certain death for Nitro at the time, it was an immediate success. What would be dubbed the "Monday Night Wars" began, as Nitro beat Raw in their first head-to-head week and ran neck-and-neck with the WWF for the remainder of the year. Each show garnered eleven ratings-victories by the end of 1995, and slowly but steadily, the popularity of the wrestling business in general began to grow during this period, driven largely by the direct competition between the two wrestling shows. In 1996, Bischoff signed WWF superstar Scott Hall, better known to audiences as "Razor Ramon". Hall's defection from the WWF was kept a secret within the industry, so that his first appearance on Nitro seemed to be a legitimate "invasion" from the rival company. Two weeks later on Nitro, Hall was joined by Kevin Nash, better known as "Diesel", to become "The Outsiders". Bischoff intentionally depicted the duo as WWF rebels who were not under contract to WCW. To avoid legal action by the WWF, Bischoff, in a worked interview at The Great American Bash, asked point blank if they worked for the WWF, which both Hall and Nash emphatically denied. The Outsiders expanded and became the New World Order when perennial fan-favorite Hulk Hogan aligned himself with the Outsiders in July 1996. The nWo was depicted as a rival company engaging in a "hostile takeover" of WCW. Week to week, the angle grew more complex, with a barrage of main-eventers, mid-carders, executives, referees, managers, and announcers involved in various subplots related to the onscreen "WCW vs nWo" power-struggle. Led by the nWo storyline, WCW overtook the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in America with Nitro defeating Raw in the ratings by a wide margin for 84 consecutive weeks. During this era, Bischoff moved from a commentator to a manager role with the nWo. His television character, which had always been a babyface-announcer, became a dictator and egomaniac as the nWo boss. Despite initial criticisms that he was too involved in the storylines, Bischoff has since been widely praised for his ability to work a crowd. He would often insincerely proclaim his love for an audience even as they booed him, and react as if they were cheering for him, which of course angered the fans even more. Bischoff also enjoyed some mainstream exposure in his own right at the time, appearing on the HBO series Arli$$ as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 1998, Wade Keller dubbed Bischoff "the executive with the Midas touch." In 2002, Bischoff was hired by World Wrestling Entertainment to be the General Manager of Raw, a role he played until late 2005. His debut as Raw GM resurrected his characteristic brand of smarminess with the GM position, again playing the arrogant heel character he had perfected as the nWo boss in WCW. His reign as GM was longer than any other GM in WWE history and included "innovations" like the "Raw Roulette" and the Elimination Chamber, as well as feuds with Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, SmackDown General Manager Stephanie McMahon, and former Extreme Championship Wrestling owner Paul Heyman. On one episode of Raw, he even had The Rock thrown out and escorted from the building, prompting The Rock to say "Of all people, you throw The Rock out of the building? No wonder WCW went out of business." Bischoff was kayfabe "fired" as General Manager in late 2005, when Vince McMahon tossed him into a garbage truck - following a "trial" where his history of unscrupulous actions were listed - and driven out of the arena. Bischoff then sat out the remainder of the year and spent the start of 2006 writing a book that would become Controversy Creates Cash. Bischoff was against writing a wrestling book initially, as he believes "most are bitter, self-serving revisionist history at best—and monuments to bullshit at their worst.". While promoting his book Controversy Creates Cash on WWE.com, Bischoff criticized Wikipedia for his page stating that many parts were untrue. He said it was "flawed" and "wished he had done as much with his life as his page had stated". Although it was widely believed that his contract expired during his sabbatical, Bischoff's contract with the WWE expired on August 5, 2007. On September 25, 2006, Bischoff appeared on WWE TV for the first time in close to a year, being brought into the ring by Jonathan Coachman where he proceeded to promote his recently finished book Controversy Creates Ca$h (ISBN 1-4165-2729-X) and gave a worked shoot on Vince McMahon and WWE. During his segment Bischoff stated, "Without Monday Nitro there would be no Monday Night Raw...without the nWo there would be no DX...and without Eric Bischoff there would be no Vince McMahon", after which Bischoff's microphone was turned off and he was escorted from the building by security. A few days later John Bradshaw Layfield conducted a four-part interview with Bischoff, further discussing his book, on WWE.com. During the interview, Bischoff discussed various topics, such as his true feelings towards Lex Luger, his thoughts on ECW promoter Paul Heyman, his decision of giving Kevin Nash booking power, and his overall reaction to the Monday Night Wars. At one point, it was even on the New York Times best seller list. Bischoff was chosen as the special guest referee for the D-Generation X vs. Edge and Randy Orton match at Cyber Sunday on November 5, with 60% of the vote. He then cheated DX out of the win, leaving Orton and Edge the victors. On the November 6, 2006 episode of Raw, Bischoff was reinstated as General Manager for one night only. During his time as the GM on Raw, he restarted matches if he didn't like the outcome. He also got revenge on Maria for her statement made in his trial the year before by making her face Umaga, forced John Cena to "take the night off," and banned DX from the building. He restarted the match between Jeff Hardy and Johnny Nitro for the WWE Intercontinental Championship after Hardy won by DQ. Bischoff restarted that match as a No Disqualification match, and Nitro took advantage of that using Melina to distract Hardy and striking him with the title belt. At the end of the show, DX interfered in the main event when Bischoff tried to help Edge and Randy Orton win the tag team titles, and forced him to be humiliated by "Big Dick Johnson" as revenge for costing them their match the night before. On March 5, 2007, Bischoff made a brief appearance on Raw in Phoenix, Arizona to give Vince McMahon his thoughts on the WrestleMania 23 match against Donald Trump. Then on December 10, 2007, Bischoff returned to Raw for its 15th Anniversary Special and was confronted by Chris Jericho, who was fired on Raw in 2005. On the same night, his profile was updated onto the WWE alumni section on WWE.com.